Page 111 of A Love Like Venom

And I’m not the gambling man to take a chance.

I wish I was.

I wish I was the man who could take a risk but I can’t.

Because there’s just too much to lose if we ever went down that road.

Selfishly I’d rather stay how we are now. With her looking at me like I’m her very own hero then for one day to see me as the villain.

She repeats the question, “Do you ever think that one day we will be apart?”

The very thought has my heart constricting in my chest.

A world without Alice Hall? I can’t fucking imagine it.

Not when she’s the light to my heavily dark soul.

“Why would you say that?” I try my best to hide the fear in my voice. Like I said, I’m a selfish bastard, I’m with her sister but I don’t want her out of my life. And if she’s even thinking about leaving . . .

“Because everyone leaves.” There’s a sadness to her tone that I don’t like. When I look in her eyes it’s there, too.

The only person I know in her life that has left is her father. She told me when she was younger. Curiously one day she asked where mine was and I said that he left. She then told me that hers did, too but she never really knew him.

It was the one thing we learned we had in common at such a young age. Our fathers abandoned us.

“You still have your mother and sister,” I remind her.

She stiffens in response. Her pinky tightening around mine to the point where it begins to hurt. “That’s not the same,” she mumbles.

And I want to ask her what that means. I want to know why she feels that way. I know her and her sister aren’t that close but Caitlin has never said one mean thing about her to me. Neither has Alice.

Before I can question it she whispers, “I don’t want us to be apart, Reed.”

“Hey, I’m not going anywhere. I’m keeping that promise. I’m not leaving you,” I assure her.

Still doubt clouds in her eyes. “But what if it happens? What if one day we become separated?”

My voice grows gruff, emotion choking me. “Then I’ll find my way back to you.” She doesn’t say anything back but I don’t expect her to. I just feel her nod her head against my arm before laying it on my shoulder.

Removing my pinky from her death grip I take my arm and wrap it around her.Securing her in an embrace that I hope will bring her a sense of comfort.

It’s then, with her in my arms, how she fits perfectly, how it feels right that I tell her, “I can’t imagine my life without you in it.”

“I can’t imagine mine without you in it,” she echoes back.

“Then we never have to worry.”

Except she did have to worry.

She had to worry because I broke that fucking promise. Because I believed what Caitlin told me. Because I believed in my own fucking insecurities.

But I tell you what, that’s never going to fucking happen again.

I wasn’t lying when I told Alice I had no intentions on letting her go. Because now that I have her back in my life I’m starting to find the beauty in it once again.

I’m becoming myself again.

Hell, maybe even someone better.

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